Secret Warriors (Men at War 2)

Spiers asked.

"That could pose a very embarrassing situation."

"When he does show up," Canidy said angrily, "you can brighten his day by telling him that when he does get back, I will press charges." Even as he said it, he knew it was an empty threat. To charge a man with avoiding hazardous duty, you would have to specify what hazardous duty.

Officially, this flight-whether or not they made it-didn't exist. They didn't absolutely have to have a flight engineer. It was a really chickenshit-chickenshit, hell, cowardly-thing for the engineer to do, of course, but he knew that they could do without him. He wondered if that had entered into the man's thinking. Spiers drove them back to the airport, where, obviously relieved to be rid of them, he gave them another perfunctory handshake and watched them climb into the aircraft and start the engines. Before they taxied to the end of the runway, they saw his car driving off.

Once they left Luanda, navigation was surprisingly simple. Twenty minutes out of Luanda-still in a slow climb passing 9,000 feet-Canidy saw a light to their right and pointed it out to Whittaker. "Probably Salazar," Whittaker said, but then corrected himself.

"It has to be Salazar. According to the chart, there's absolutely nothing down there but jungle and that town." Canidy leveled off at 10,000 feet, flew far enough to the left of Salazar so that no one would hear the airplane, and pointed the nose toward Malange, 110 miles farther along. Five minutes later, faint but unmistakable against the absolute blackness, they could see another glow of lights. He flew the lights to Ca colo, then to Nova Chaves, again far enough to one side so that no one could hear the engines. Ten minutes after passing Nova Chaves, they spotted a yellow glow that had to be Kasaji, in the Belgian Congo, for there was nothing else resembling civilization for three hundred miles.

They were now over the border-which made them now absolutely illegal.

They had entered the airspace of a neutral, German-occupied country without permission. The least offense they could be accused of now would be violating airspace. Later, after they loaded the ore, they would be smuggling. Unless, of course-and this didn't seem unlikely-the Germans to whom the Belgians would have to turn them over decided the best way to deal with the situation-cut down on the paperwork-was to shoot them on the spot. The London chief of station wants Whittaker to shoot me. He won't do that, and I damned sure won't shoot myself Why would the Germans, before they shot me, suspect I knew anything more than my orders? And probably damned little about why I was flying this airplane except that I was ordered to. Then the glow that had to be Kolwezi appeared dead ahead, a soft yellow spot that seemed even from a distance larger than the other towns. As they got closer, the lights came into focus and took on a strange pattern like a lopsided bull's-eye-lines of lights forming concentric circles. "What the hell is that?" Whittaker asked. "The copper mines," Canidy said, "the largest man-made hole in the world."

"Kolwezi," Whittaker said to the microphone, "this is Belgian African Airways Two-zero-six, five miles west. Request you light the runway."

The lights came on a moment later, not at all bright, but two parallel lines of them, with three Vs, forming an arrow at one end. Canidy had never seen lights like that before. He cut back on the power and lowered the nose. Though there was no communication from the tower, when he had touched down and begun to slow, he saw the headlights of a car racing down what had to be an unlighted taxiway parallel to the runway. He taxied all the way to the far end of the runway, and concluded that getting out of here with a full load was not going to be as difficult as he had feared. The runway was wide and very, very long. It was paved with some sort of crushed stone that was almost certainly mine tailings.

Canidy shut down the engines as Whittaker went aft to open the door.

When they climbed down the ladder, a man cradling a shotgun in his arm like a hunter was standing there next to another European. "Bonsoir, Monsieur Grunier,' Canidy said. "We were beginning to give you up," Grunier said. He did not seem surprised to see Canidy, although the last time they had seen each other was in a small boat off Safi, Morocco. Grunier had been bound and gagged because his pathetic pleading to remain in Morocco had been more than Canidy could stand.

Awkwardly, because of his shotgun, Grunier climbed into the C-46 and looked around. Then he climbed down again. While he was in the airplane, the runway lights went off. Grunier looked at Whittaker and matter-of-factly said, "I will kill you if you attempt to leave without me."

"What the hell is he talking about?" Whittaker asked. "The last time he was offered government transportation, they left me behind. I guess he doesn't want that to happen to him," Canidy explained, and then turned to Grunier.

"My orders are to take you," he said. "Where's the cargo?"

The European took a small flashlight, pointed it, and blinked it on and off three times. Several hundred yards off in the darkness, there was the sound of engines starting, and then the sound of vehicles approaching. When headlights came on, Canidy saw two trucks, a 1938 or 1939 Chevrolet panel truck and a large, canvas-roofed French Renault.

Both had the legend "Union Mini re" painted on their doors.

The larger truck approached the C-46 and then made a turn so that the headlights shone on an area of spellings. The Chevrolet stopped so that its headlights lit the C-46 door.

An astonishing number of Africans, tall, muscular, good-looking men wearing white cotton shirts and what looked like American dungarees, poured out the back of the Renault truck.

There must be thirty of them, Canidy thought.

The last couple of men off the truck reached back inside and began to pass out shovels. Several others went to the Chevrolet and came out with bundles of cloth bags. "It isn't bagged?" Canidy asked incredulously. "I could move it here without suspicion," the European said. "But I could not bag it without attracting the attention of the wrong people." THE SECRET WARRIORS N all "Jesus!" Canidy said. There was the sound of another truck engine, and Canidy looked with alarm in that direction.

"The fuel truck," the European said.

"Nothing to worry about. "How long is this going to take?" Canidy said.

"As long as it takes thirty noires to fill one hundred twenty bags," the European said, "and load them on the airplane." The Africans, the noires, seemed to know exactly what they were doing. One man held open the mouth of one of the bags while two men shoveled the material into it. As Canidy watched, a bag was filled. The man who had been holding the mouth picked it up, shook it to settle it, held it for another couple of shovelfuls, shook it again, and then took several steps back.

As he tied the bag, another African with a bag moved into position so the shovelers could fill it. At the rate they're going, Canidy thought, they'll be finished long before we're refueled. six I Luanda, Portuguese Angola 2030 Hours August 20, 1942 When the Luanda radio direction finder signal had finally grown strong enough to be trusted, Fine knew they were 150 miles or so almost dead south of where they were supposed to be. A little farther south and they would

not have picked up the Luanda transmitter at all. But they flew the needle, and ten hours and fifty minutes after taking off from Bissau, they received permission from Luanda to land. The landing, Fine thought, was a real greaser, the best one he had ever made in the C-46.

That had to be just pure dumb luck-and he almost immediately had good cause to suspect that was all the good luck they were going to have.

Three Portuguese customs officials walked out from the small terminal to the C-46 and, as soon as Fine put the ladder out, climbed aboard.

They saluted, bowed, and shook hands-and then saw Nembly, asleep or unconscious, and Wilson with his bandaged head and his arm in a splint.

"You have befell a misfortune?" the senior of the customs officials asked. "He fell," Fine said.